Harry S. Truman had a famous sign on his desk: “The buck stops here.” Barack Obama seems to have one that says: “I only learned about it when you did, from the television news.” This is, of course, almost exactly what Jay Carney said in his second embarrassing press conference: “We have no knowledge of phone snooping …beyond the press reports that we’ve read.” Or, as Dana Milbank writes, Obama “responded as though he were just some bloke on a bar stool, getting his information from the evening news.” If you believe this, I’ve got a nice White House in the District of Columbia to sell you.

In fact, as USA Today reports in its lead story, the IRS “gave liberals a pass.” The newspaper’s investigation concluded the following:

As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with obviously liberal names were approved in as little as nine months. With names including words like "Progress" or "Progressive," these groups applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups.

The groups that easily got non-profit tax status were the exact liberal-activist counterparts of the conservative Tea Party outfits. The paper mentions specifically a few of them: “Bus for Progress,” “Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment,” and “Progress Florida.” All were groups that worked for goals such as increasing the minimum wage, support for “progressive” politicians, and expansion of Medicaid. The USA Today report continues:

Like the Tea Party groups, the liberal groups sought recognition as social welfare groups under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, based on activities like "citizen participation" or "voter education and registration."

In a conference call with reporters last week, the IRS official responsible for granting tax-exempt status said that it was a mistake to subject Tea Party groups to additional scrutiny based solely on the organization's name. But she said ideology played no part in the process.

It was simply an accident, of course. It was “not a partisan selection,” IRS official Lois Lerner told reporters. Before you laugh and ask “does she really believe her own words?” consider the following. One must remember that many liberals and leftists see their actions as non-partisan. After all, they are only serving the public interest by stopping conservatives from organizing and expressing their views.